Judge urges prosecutors, defence lawyers to speed up cases

WESTERN BUREAU:

A senior high court justice is urging prosecutors and defence attorneys alike to stop contributing to the longstanding issue of cases languishing in the court system for years without speedy resolution.

Justice Bertram Morrison, addressing the opening ceremony of the St James Circuit Court’s Hilary session, said prosecutors and defence lawyers have an equal responsibility to ensure that cases do not end up being dragged through the courts, an issue which has previously been identified as a contributing factor to the backlog in Jamaica’s court system.

“Whenever you have a case that is hopeless, and this is for the defendants’ attorneys now, why must it require any scientific artifice to throw yourself upon the mercy of the court? This is what justice is about, giving to a man what is due to him. But we wait, we prolong, in the hope or expectation that the system will somehow forget about the evils which have been heaped upon another citizen of this country; that cannot be justice, and counsel needs to advise their clients whenever that is so,” said Morrison.

“Equally, for the prosecution, where the case is weak, it should not be made to stay on the list for five years. I am coming from a parish, St Catherine, where it is just as plentiful in terms of crimes in Jamaica, and I am seeing cases languishing on the list for seven years only to be thrown out after the eighth year. That cannot be justice, that practice must stop,” Morrison added.

The Ministry of Justice has implemented several strategies over the years, including as far back as 2008, in an effort to rectify the perennial issue of case backlog in Jamaica’s various courts. These strategies include an attempt in 2016 to quantify the number of cases that have been in the system for unreasonable amounts of time.

Additionally, former Chief Justice Zaila McCalla announced in 2016 that drastic measures would be taken to reduce case backlog, including sending cases that have been on the court list for more than five years to a special court for adjudication.

In 2022, attorney-at-law Peter Champagnie, KC, suggested that sanctioning attorneys whose actions cause cases to be dragged on before the courts could help to alleviate the backlog.

More recently, in September 2023, current Chief Justice Bryan Sykes announced that Jamaica’s parish courts are now free of case backlogs, with that accomplishment taking place two years ahead of schedule, and that there is a continued reduction in the backlog of cases before the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court.

In the meantime, during his address to the St James Circuit Court on Monday, Justice Morrison also commented on the perpetual issue of the lack of juror turnout, noting that prospective jurors continue to seek avenues to avoid participating in the judicial process.

“What has not abated is the sparsity of jurors who have come to serve … there have been numerable excuses which have been filed, ranging from ill health, old age, to a reluctance to serve. It is intolerable, because as presently constituted, this court cannot function without the jurors,” said Morrison.

“For example, we have 59 murders to deal with, among other matters of a sexual offence nature. It must mean that a lot of these cases are going to have to go forward. It cannot be done in four weeks, and it does not require a mathematical genius to see that,” Morrison added.

While 1,000 summonses for jury duty were sent out through the post and another 500 were sent out to be personally issued, only 14 prospective jurors were present in the St James Circuit Court for Monday’s opening ceremony of the circuit’s Hilary session.

There are 192 cases on the St James Circuit Court’s current list for this session, to include 169 cases which were traversed from previous Circuit Court sessions and 23 new matters.

christopher.thomas@gleanerjm.com

The breakdown of the cases is as follows:

- 59 murder cases

- 78 possession of identity information cases

- 2 wounding with intent cases

- 1 manslaughter case

- 1 assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm case

- 1 causing grievous bodily harm with intent case

- 26 rape cases

- 12 sex with a person under the age of 16 cases

- 2 grievous sexual assault cases

- 1 possession of child pornography case

- 2 buggery cases

- 1 grooming a child case

- 4 incest cases

- 1 indecent assault case

- 1 trafficking in persons case